CHAPTER 4
Invasion
from Kings Cross
Sunday, July
14, 2002
he summer
of 2002 will always be remembered as a dire time for the Glaston Town community
Tonight Sam has volunteered for
evening duty in the area around the Lavender Open Space. It’s been a hot, suffocating
summer, and the Council is aware that more work is likely to get done in the cool
of the night than during the smoldering day. There’s plenty of work for Sam to do;
empty Coke cans and discarded ice cream and lolly wrappers litter the road. Among
the rubbish, he picks up a worn-out copy of the Glaston Town Journal. One
of the headlines, catches his attention: “Kings Cross: £2 Billion Redevelopment
Gets Go Ahead.”
Demolition on a grand scale is
taking place in the neighbourhood of Kings Cross railway station, south of Glaston
Town, to make way for this massive regeneration project. For years, Kings Cross
has been a haven for brothels, drug dens, illegal poker gambling clubs and a multitude
of other venues where criminal activities take place. With the new construction,
the lowlifes who have practiced their trade in the district are being moved out.
A trim red fox crosses the park
with utter confidence. Household cats pick up his scent and swiftly climb trees
to safety. One can hear muffled sounds from windows that have been left open, but
on the whole, the neighbourhood is quiet and peaceful.
All of a sudden, newcomers emerge
out of nowhere, like locusts swarming over the district: Dozens of them, noisy,
brash and either drugged-up or drunk. The women in the group, mostly white, ages
ranging from 16 to near 60, are dramatically made up and dressed to kill in miniskirts
and high heels. They prowl the streets like wild cats, sussing out the neighbourhood
for business opportunities. Men, mostly black and cool, swagger in the middle of
the wide Lavender Road, a strong whiff of marijuana trailing behind them. These
are a cast of a sinister nature, the like of which one has not seen in the area
before.
At the head of the pack, however,
is one local: Leila Pain, as provocative as ever in a newly bleached hairdo and
flashy silver outfit. Gleaming with excitement, she hangs proudly on the arm of
a black man who’s built like a tank. Towering a full seven inches above him, she
squawks: “I told you how fabulous this place wuz, Smokey, dinn’t I?”
“Urhh,” grunts Smokey. Leila’s
friend, who appears to be of Afro-Caribbean origin, isn’t exactly communicative.
One gets little out of him but the occasional monosyllable.
“Who needs freaking Kings Cross
when you can have Glaston Town?”
“Urhh.”
Faces appear at windows, gawking
at this unwelcome spectacle. Despite the sweltering heat, some residents even shut
their windows.
Leila points out a Council house
near the corner of Lavender Road and Welsh Street, at No. 49. “That’s the one!”
she says in a high shrilly voice, and Smokey’s colleagues rush into the building.
“I ain’t going nowhere!” an old
man shouts with a scratchy voice.
“You wait and see,” says a fierce
male voice.
“It’s payback time, Moses,” says
another.
“Oh, oh, ooooh,” cries Moses Columba
as he is being ejected, forcibly, and lands on the road with a loud thump.
As the ancient, vulnerable drug
addict gathers his wits; there is plenty of activity taking place inside his former
home. Mobile phones start ringing. Deals are being made. Loud rock and roll music
blares into the night. The Kings Cross troublemakers are open for business—and,
it appears, here to stay.
Leila drags Smokey along to her
flat in the Radford building around the corner on Charity Lane. Climbing the stairs,
she wakes everyone along her trail. Outside Jayne Corbyn’s door, she shrieks. “What
the hell! My freaking heels are coming off!”
Mrs. Corbyn, who is watching Inspector
Morse on the telly, is not in the mood to be disturbed. It has been an exhausting
day for her, working at the McDougall’s Fast Food restaurant. She swings the door
wide open and pleads: “Leila, for crying out loud!”
Her 12-year-old son, Jack, wakened
by the noise, appears behind her in his pyjamas, eager to investigate the cause
of the disturbance. Mother and son find themselves face to face with the menacing
presence of Smokey. Without uttering another word, Jayne Corbyn shuts the door.
Rachel Keighgan’s head emerges
from one of the windows. “Give over, luv,” shouts the no-nonsense nurse in her native
Yorkshire accent. “No one can sleep with all this racket.”
“Awh, shut up,” Leila barks back
as she crosses the balcony on the south side to the northern wing where she lives.
It is a long and tiring ascent
to Leila’s flat, which is perched at the top of the six-story building, at No. 63.
The moment she and Smokey cross the threshold, Leila switches on the radio. She’s
in the mood for jazzy blues, the louder the better.
Next door to her flat, at No. 62,
Mrs. Karen Thibault and her teenaged daughter, Lucy, are soon wakened. Through the
thin walls, they can hear the unmistakable sounds of sexual activity. Leila and
Smokey have wasted no time.
“This is horrid, just so horrid!”
Mrs. Thibault cries out in distress.
Lucy, whose 15th birthday she celebrated
just a few days ago, is quite grown up for her age. “Don’t worry, Mother. We have
each other. Leila’s hasn’t got anyone. She needs company from time to time.”
“Oh, my dear Lucy, what are we
going to do?”
“Nothing,” replies Lucy. “They’ll
soon get tired and go to sleep. Meanwhile, I’ll make us a cup of tea.” The teenager
fills the kettle, boils the water and generally takes charge. She has done so since
she was eight, the year her father died. Her mother just could not cope with her
loss. Despite having to deal with her own grief, Lucy had to take over many household
duties and make sure her mother did not give up. Tomorrow she will visit Leila and
quietly appeal to her better nature. Were it anyone else, Leila would tell her where
to go. But for Lucy, whose struggles she well knows, La Pain will try to moderate
her behaviour. That won’t last, of course, but at least she’ll try, which is probably
the best one could expect.
Meanwhile, Tom O’Connors emerges
in his dressing gown from the flat at No. 38, which he, his daughter, Maureen, and
sister-in-law, Angela Parnel, share. He climbs several flights of stairs, shuffles
resolutely towards Leila’s door and knocks repeatedly on it with his walking stick.
Stark naked, Smokey answers the door and stares at Tom without saying a word. O’Connors,
however, is too old to be intimidated. “Listen, young man, we will not tolerate
this kind of behaviour around here.”
“Eh?” questions Smokey.
“There are children about. So keep
your fun down and to yourself, you hear?”
“Uhh!” Smokey responds.
“And turn this wretched music off.
It’s the middle of the night, for Pete’s sake.”
“Uhh,” growls Smokey, shutting
the door in old O’Connors’ face.
Tom O’Connors walks away, grumbling.
“Dirty dogs.”
Mercifully, no one has taken a
blind bit of notice of Sam. As ever, the road sweeper is invisible. It’s the first
time since he arrived in England from the States that he hasn’t felt entirely safe,
and with good reason. In no time at all, the streets, the park and the social housing
estates in Glaston Town have been literally taken over by these newcomers, as they
carry out their drug dealings around the clock, in full view of residents, their
children and passers-by.
Prostitution, too, is running rampant.
Even that nice Major Gordon Casey is deemed a suitable target. Scarlet, an emaciated,
mature-looking white woman with dark hair tied up in a chignon, struts her stuff
on five-inch-high stiletto heels. She appraises the Major. The handsome black man
wobbles slightly, but can still stand tall and proud despite his blindness and other
war injuries. Reeking of cheap perfume, she embraces the stunned Casey. “Hello!”
she greets him warmly.
Gordon Casey squeezes the lead
of his guide dog, Gertrude. It takes a moment for him to catch on. “Do I know you?”
he asks politely.
“No, but very soon you will.”
“I think there’s been a misunderstanding,”
he tells her.
“No, you’re the one I’ve been looking
for, that’s for sure.”
Gordon’s wife, Klaire, and their
eight-year-old daughter, Cynthia, turn the corner at Rochdale Street and are startled
by the sight of the aged prostitute wrapped around Gordon.
“May we help you?” Klaire asks
in a civil, but firm, voice.
Scarlet brings an unlit cigarette
from her hand to her mouth and lets it dangle from her lips. “Yeah, sweetie, you
can give me a light if you want.”
“My husband and I don’t smoke,”
says Klaire, as she leads her puzzled spouse away.
“Thanks all the same,” says the
older woman, shrugging.
Young Cynthia stares back at the
rejected prostitute. She hasn’t missed a thing. Scarlet is lucky. This time around,
she has encountered a dignified married woman. Next time, fur will fly. Glaston
Town is the kind of place where women will defend their territory with much more
than words.
Litter around Lavender Road now
includes used condoms, burnt-out foils, pipes and needles, bloody knives and other
evidence of a dissolute lifestyle. Almost overnight, a modest neighbourhood has
been transformed into hell.
